Wolves

Wolves have always been portrayed as evil menacing creatures in popular stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, and other fairy tales. Even today, many people are afraid of wolves, and see them as destructive animals. Wolves are actually very smart, social animals that work together with other wolves to catch their food. In addition, wolves are an important keystone species that helps limit the populations of other animals and weed out the weak and injured. Understanding the life and behavior of a wolf can help teach about the food web, and a predator's role.

You will be broken up into groups. Your group's task is to use the internet to research the role of the Grey Wolf in an ecosystem. Identify the wolf's role, and make a model food web showing the wolf's place in that web. You will then give a brief presentation to the class about what your group has learned, and display your food web.

Your teacher will assign groups. Each group needs to cooperate together, and make sure that everyone contributes to the research. Begin by using the provided links to answer the questions below:

When using the internet to do research, you will often spend a lot of time exploring different websites and following links. Be patient, and if you get stuck, ask your teacher for help. Here are a few links to get you started with your research.

If you need to find some more information, you may use the Search Engine to do your own research.

After you have answered these questions, use a poster board and cut out pictures from magazines or print them online to create a wolf's food web. After you have created your food web, you will present it to the class.

Wolf Food Web Rubric	Possible Points	Self-Assessment	Teacher Assessment
Answered all five questions (worth 4 points apiece)	20
Evidence of Teamwork	10
Food Web complete, and neat, appropriate choices	20
Total Possible Points	50

Note that correct answers to the five questions are worth just as much as the food web. Also, teamwork is a big part of your grade. Be sure to cooperate and work together to get all points.

Wolves are not the bad scary animals they've been made out to be. They are smart animals, and play a very important role in an ecosystem as a keystone species. Wolves keep the number of large mammals down while also weeding out the weak and the sick. Throughout this project, you have been asked to work together and cooperate to achieve a common goal, just as a wolf does when hunting! Hopefully, you have learned about a wolf's role in an ecosystem, and gained some experience using the internet to research a specific topic.

6th Grade - 2.2 Examine the competitive relationships among organisms within an ecosystem

8th Grade - 8.2.tpi.2 describe the niche and habitat of an organism within an ecosystem

5.0 The student will use technology as a tool to conduct and evaluate research and to communicate effectively information and ideas

Preceding and Ensuing Events of Instruction: Before beginning this web quest, the teacher should show the IMAX DVD Wolves (1hour). This movie will give the students some background knowledge on the wolf, its habitat, and its behavior. After starting this web quest, the teacher should be prepared to assist the students with web searches, or any problems. Also, the students will need to print pictures from online or have magazines with animal pictures to cut out for the food web. If necessary, they could draw the animals or simply write the name instead of a picture. The teacher should feel free to alter this web quest in any way necessary to best serve as a learning tool for the student.

Purpose The purpose of this web quest is to: Teach the student about the role of wolves within an ecosystem, teach the student about food webs and keystone species, to encourage the use of the internet as a viable research tool, to improve existing internet research skills, to promote group work skills and cooperation.

Google. (2003). Search Engine. Retrieved October 28, 2003, from www.google.com

The Behavior, Evolution, and Ecology of Gray Wolves (2003). Gray Wolf. Retrieved December 3, 2003, from www.ualberta.ca/~jzgurski/

Wolf Park (2003). Informational Sites about Wolves (links). Retrieved December 3, 2003, from www.wolfpark.org/Links_misc.html